Green Party support among young voters climbs to tie with the Tories

The Greens have been given some welcome news today as latest polls shows they are level pegging with the Tories for the youth vote.

The Green Party has enjoyed a rise in the polls in recent months often hovering just below or above the beleaguered Lib Dems. Pollster YouGov each month's daily polls over 2014 and found the Greens tied with the Tories on 22 per cent of the vote for 18-24.

The two parties losing out the most in the race for the youth vote are Labour and the Lib Dems. Labour's support fell from 44 per cent in January to last year to 32 per cent in December.

The Lib Dems have taken the biggest beating, polling just five per cent. To put this in perspective, YouGov showed support for the Lib Dems among young voters running at 37 per cent. The party has yet to recover from the PR disaster that was their u-turn on tuition fees.

The Greens may be boosting their support on university campuses, but they were dealt a blow by broadcasting regulator Ofcom. The regulator recently published proposals suggesting the Green Party should not be granted major party status.

Ofcom said in a consultation paper:

The party has not demonstrated significant past electoral support in General Elections. The Green Party has performed better in some other forms of election, such as the 2014 European Parliamentary elections, obtaining eight per cent and 8.1 per cent of the vote in England and Scotland.

In terms of evidence of current support, the party’s opinion poll rating in Great Britain-wide polls has increased in recent months to 5.9 per cent in December 2014 (Four per cent on average during 2014).

Green Party leader Natalie Bennett was furious with the decision:

The Green Party is deeply disappointed by this draft Ofcom ruling, not only for itself, but for the damage it risks doing to British democracy.